A Washington Timeseditorial declares, “Time to stock up on light bulbs: Government ban on mercury-free fixtures takes effect Jan. 1.” Contrastingly, NPR calls such statements “rumors” and says that incandescent bulbs will merely be more efficient—and the only difference we’ll notice is that our electric bills will be lower.

Reality falls between these two competing claims. To be precise, on 1/1/12, a provision of federal law will effectively ban the manufacture of standard incandescent bulbs, starting with the 100-watt bulb in 2012 on down to the 40-watt bulb in 2014. Other types of incandescent bulbs can meet these efficiency requirements, but they cost multiplicatively more than standard bulbs. On the other hand, the electricity savings from using these bulbs typically outweigh the added initial purchase costs.

Also, by no later than 2020, the same law requires “more stringent standards,” which high-efficiency incandescents cannot currently meet, thus making the mercury-filled compact florescent lights (CFLs) the presumptive standard. Media coverage has been virtually devoid of this fact. The following lays out the details.

At issue here is the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, which passed Congress with 97% of Democrats voting for it and 76% of Republicans voting against it (see House and Senate vote records). It was then signed into law by Republican President George W. Bush.

This law contains a section entitled “Efficient Light Bulbs,” which sets standards for “general service incandescent lamps,” which the majority of light bulbs currently used by Americans cannot achieve. As explained by GE Lighting:

Between 2012 and 2014, standard A-line 40- and 100-watt incandescent light bulbs must use 30% less energy, but produce the same light output as the incandescent bulbs most of us use today.

What does this mean for me?

While you won’t be required to throw out your existing bulbs, you may be surprised when trying to find the same replacements at the store. After 2012, you’ll find that these bulbs will have to be replaced with energy-efficient options, such as Halogen, CFL and LED light bulbs.

More directly, a technical report from a state and local initiative facilitated by the U.S. Department of Energy states that “in essence,” the law begins “the phase out of standard incandescent bulbs. In 2012, 100 W incandescent bulbs will no longer be manufactured, followed by restrictions on 75 W in 2013 and 60 W in 2014.”

GE Lighting states that the “most common alternative to incandescents used today is the CFL. While the upfront investment is more for these bulbs, the cost is more than offset in money savings and product longevity.” However, besides being visually unappealing to many people, CFLs

• can lose significant brightness after minimal use.
• are not meeting their advertised cost savings in the real world.
• produce “less color quality” than standard bulbs, leaving consumers “dissatisfied—and rightfully so,” in the words of a CFL advocate and professor at the California Lighting Technology Center at the University of California, Davis.
• have enough mercury in them that the EPA recommends shutting down your home’s HVAC system and undertaking extensive cleanup measures if one of these bulbs should break.

Halogen incandescent bulbs do not contain mercury, are functionally and visually equivalent to standard incandescents, and can meet the new efficiency regulations, although not all of them do. For example, the Philips 72-watt EcoVantage Natural halogen bulb puts out 1,200 lumens of light, which does not meet the law’s standard of 1,490 lumens for a bulb of this wattage. GE makes a 72-watt halogen bulb that just meets the standard. The price for a two-pack of these at my local Walmart is $3.58 or $1.79 per bulb.

In contrast, at the same Walmart, the price for a four-pack of standard 100-watt incandescents with a brightness of 1,500 lumens is $1.00 or $0.25 per bulb. Thus, the halogen bulb is more than seven times the cost of the standard one ($1.79/$0.25).

However, the halogen bulb puts out virtually the same amount of light as the standard (1,490 versus 1,500 lumens) while using 28% less electricity (72 versus 100 watts). Both bulbs are rated at 1,000 hours of service life, and the national average price for electricity in October 2011 was $0.130 per kilowatt-hour. Employing the data above, the electricity cost savings of using the halogen bulb instead of the standard one is $3.64. Accounting for the difference in initial purchase prices, the halogen bulb saves about $2.10 over its service life (see calculations below).

This price data must be balanced with the reality that energy-efficient bulbs often have hidden costs that we pay through our taxes, because they are subsidized by state governments and the federal government through green energy subsidies. This is one of the ways in which General Electric managed to pay no U.S. corporate income taxes in 2010 while earning $5.1 billion in profits from its operations in the United States.

With regard to LED bulbs, these are still prohibitively expensive for most applications. This year, Osram-Sylvania unveiled a prototype LED that puts out the same amount of light as a 100-watt standard incandescent. Pricing is not yet available, but the 60-watt equivalent of this bulb currently costs $34.98 for a single bulb at Amazon.com. Nevertheless, because LEDs have extremely long service lives, they can be cost-effective when installed in hard-to-access locations where the expense of paying someone to the replace the bulbs is high.

Although virtually unmentioned by the media, possibly the most demanding aspect of these light bulb dictates is a provision that authorizes the Secretary of Energy to make “more stringent standards” than those detailed above. Moreover, if the Secretary does not do this of his own accord, the law contains a “backstop requirement” that demands a “minimum efficacy standard of 45 lumens per watt” for all “general service” bulbs by 2020. The energy-efficient 72-watt GE halogen that we just examined produces only 21 lumens per watt (1490/72), which falls far short of this requirement.

As explained in the technical report cited above, this mandate essentially makes “CFLs the baseline.” This means that without a major technological advance, consumers may have no choice but to purchase either highly expensive LEDs or mercury-laden CFLs with poor color quality and subpar performance.

NOTE (12/21/11): The calculations above are based upon the October 2011 national average electricity rate, which was $0.130 per kilowatt-hour. Local electricity rates, however, vary widely and during 2010 ranged from as low $0.02 per kilowatt-hour in areas near hydropower dams to as high as $0.26 in New York City. Statewide average electricity rates varied from $0.08 in Idaho to $0.28 in Hawaii.

As you say, it is effectively a ban on all known “general service” incandescents,
including the touted Halogen type replacements
by 2020 at the latest.
Moreover, the temporarily allowed Halogen-type incandescent alternatives are less pushed and less available than CFLs (and in any case are different to simple incandescents in light quality etc, as well as costing much more for comparatively marginal savings, as you describe, and which is why few buy them voluntarily).

Besides,
apart from affecting people’s product choice,
the actual switchover savings are not that great anyway =
less than 1% of overall energy use, and 1-2% grid electricity is saved, as shown by USA Dept of Energy, EU statistics and other official informationhttp://ceolas.net/#li171x
with alternative and more meaningful ways to save energy in
generation, grid distribution or consumption.

Light bulbs don’t burn coal or release CO2.
Power plants might.
If there’s a problem – deal with the problem,
rather than a token ban on simple safe light bulbs,
light bulbs that people obviously like to use
(or there would not be a “need” to ban them)

it should of course also be remembered that many bulbs in an average US 45 light household are not used frequently, not allowing such savings of “expensive to buy but cheao to run”
–apart from lost or broken bulbs adding to cost.
The linked Ceolas website runs through several more reasons

Conversely, utilities are being compensated in CFL programs (California, Ohio etc) for “reduced sales”
– and elsewhere are being allowed to raise rates,
also in post-ban EU , as with UK and other utility examples listed.
So consumers lose out in savings,
even on reduced energy use.

What is lost in the article is that the congressman that inserted the change in the law now says that is was a big mistake. Quoting GE is useless as GE is the biggest manufacturer of the new light bulbs and also the manufacturing of the bulbs will be in China with the loss of jobs in the United States due to factories shutting down due to the new law. First the government got involved in our toilets and now our light bulbs, what is next.

Energy is neither created or destroyed – FACT. Incandescent bulbs put out more heat. If you need to heat your house and they are in that house, (WINTER) they are 100% efficient – especially if you only have the lights on in the room you are in. With fluorescent bulbs your heater has to work harder and uses the energy you THINK you are saving from the bulbs. This is true of appliances that are so called Energy Star. The old appliances gave off more heat and didn’t waste any energy in the winter – except what a dry blew outside – then we should put heat exchangers on them to save energy. What about building square or round houses – more sq. ft. per surface area.

Will we have to replace light fixtures and lamps in order to use LED or halogen lights? CFL’s are out of the question for my household. The light is inadequate and poor quality. Plus I don’t want to wait several minutes for them to come up to full power. Now I learn they are full of mercury. That doesn’t seem very environmentally friendly. How are we supposed to dispose of them?

I have lived in a period home for 5 yrs. I can’t imagine those ugly bulbs in my old period fixtures! I have ALL my switches on dimmers. I have changed 3 incandescent light bulbs in those 5 yrs. in a 3600 sq ft home. There are 6 of them that stay on dim 24/7days a week (use those as night light)… My house looks warm and inviting instead of a Wal-Mart Parking lot! Might I mention that I used CfL bulb as a test and it burned out in 1 year ! Everything looks blue with these new bulbs and gives me a headache! GEEZ…